Federal-Mogul Corporation is a leading global supplier of products and services to the world’s vehicles and equipment manufacturers and servicers. With 45,000 employees, the company does business in 17 languages across more than 34 countries. It operates two independent business segments which gross over $7 billion combined annually—a powertrain business and a motorparts business— each with its own CEO.

Adding to challenges posed by Federal-Mogul’s complexity and size, the company lacked a system that unified—and ensured consistency—across global HR processes. According to Melinda Deuby, HR process and project manager for Federal-Mogul, “We relied on spreadsheets and an antiquated, internallydeveloped system to track performance and development.”

“It was difficult to utilize our learning and talent management tools. As a result, we experienced variation and work-arounds that then would not integrate,” said Brandon Curry, director of global talent management for Federal-Mogul. “We needed a system to remain competitive and to deliver quality HR services.”

Why Cornerstone

Federal-Mogul focused on systems that were integrated, cloud-based and flexible. “Cornerstone was highly regarded by market analysts and was very competitive cost-wise,” said Curry. “We were impressed by the system’s functionality as well as the way Cornerstone worked with us during the quoting process.” Ease of use was also a key factor in Federal-Mogul’s decision. “We wanted an uncomplicated solution. The Cornerstone solution has the simplicity and intuitiveness of an Apple product or Wordpress page.”

The solution’s clean interface also proved invaluable during implementation. “We went live before training anyone,” said Deuby. “The platform is very intuitive. Our global staff was able to start utilizing the system immediately, with minimal customized support. For each of our core processes, we developed brief online tutorials and pushed them out to 10,000 employees globally using Cornerstone Learning.”

A week after launch, the company offered a boot camp designed to familiarize HR super-users with both Cornerstone and talent management. Now, the HR super-users deliver their own localized training sessions to support user adoption globally.

The Results

Increased visibility and scale of HR initiatives. Every phase of the employee lifecycle is accessible with Cornerstone’s unified solution, helping HR leaders spend less time gathering data and more time identifying opportunities for improvement. “When we complete talent reviews, we no longer gather and manipulate data for 130 spreadsheets. Cornerstone empowers HR to see areas of opportunity for more value-added work,” said Curry.

Eliminated administrative translation processes. Cornerstone’s multiple language capability helps Federal-Mogul reach thousands of employees in their native language. “This strengthens employee engagement while allowing HR to focus on the results intended by training,” said Deuby. “As a multinational company that values the contribution of all global employees; the system allows us to reach each employee in a way that displays this value,” said Lynnette Vollink, director of Powertrain and corporate staffs for Federal-Mogul.

Empowered employees through visible opportunities. “To support adoption, we encouraged employees to take advantage of the 200-plus online courses available and to populate the system with their resumes and goals,” said Deuby. Curry added, “Our internal marketing efforts promoted the system as a vehicle to support the growth of employees’ capabilities, show the impact of their contributions and achieve their career goals without having to leave the organization.”

Streamlined global communication. Prior to Cornerstone, coordinating sign-offs, reviews and training was time consuming. “We can touch 10,000 people quickly and easily,” said Curry. “We can connect with leaders regarding performance management or deploy training to employees globally.”

Ensured functionality through client services. Cornerstone’s client success services team has been critical during both implementation and daily use. “Cornerstone worked through the configurations with us,” said Curry. “Relationships with our implementation consultant and account executive at Cornerstone are really strong. Instead of feeling ‘handled,’ we feel like the Cornerstone team is truly helping.”